TOP 25 MOST OVERPAID CEOS

Click on each column name to sort.

 

THE 100 MOST OVERPAID CEOs

Compensation data furnished by ESGAUGE.

 

S&P 500 COMPANIES WITH MOST SHAREHOLDER VOTES AGAINST CEO PAY

Voting data provided by Insightia, a Diligent company

This table shows two ways of looking at CEO pay votes: the standard one, as disclosed by the company, and one that was created for us by Insightia, a Diligent Brand. It uses only the votes of institutional investors (those required to file SEC Form 13-F). In these calculations, those votes are used in both the numerator (shares voted against) and denominator (total shares voted) to calculate percentage opposition. We believe this gives a more accurate indication of where institutional investors are most dissatisfied, most starkly in cases where insiders own a particularly large portion of stock or there are dual class shares.

 

HIP INVESTOR REGRESSION ANALYSIS

This table lists Overpaid CEOs as calculated by the HIP Investor regression analysis, comparing CEO pay to company financial performance returns to shareholders.

We, like many other analysts, find very weak links between pay amounts and company financial performance. The usual justification for high executive pay is that higher pay is intended to be a reward for higher profits and above-average capital appreciation. Yet, this does not always follow – and shareholders foot the bill of excess pay. And, shareholders in firms that overpay their CEOs also may suffer lagging financial performance.

However, if we follow the assumption that pay should be determined by performance and then use a basic statistical technique to map actual performance outcomes to predicted levels of pay relative to those outcomes, we can then see how much the CEO pay package exceeded such a prediction. Those with the highest excess are ranked in the table below – and constitute this list of overpaid CEOs of the S&P 500.

  • Compensation: Total disclosed compensation collected from the SEC proxy disclosure (DEF 14A) from 2012 to 2022 on an annual rhythm. Collected by ESGAUGE for the 2022 and 2021 data and ISS prior to that.

  • Financial indicator: Total return (capital gains and dividends) on the company's primary equity. This is calculated from the Refinitiv Return Index on an annual rhythm using trailing periods behind June 30 of the year of the pay package. Performance factors were calculated across one-year, three-year, and five-year windows, trailing behind each possible pay year. Thus, data were considered as far back as 2008.

Calculation:

  • Each (company, year) value is paired with the different performances for that year, and then for each performance measure, the regression is calculated.

  • After verifying that the regressions for the time periods are comparable, a waterfall is implemented to use the financial indicator for each company with the longest time window (five-year over three-year over the one-year window) to calculate the expected compensation based on performance and the regressions.

  • All calculations are performed in Python 3 using JupyterLab.

  • After verifying that the regressions for the time periods are comparable, a waterfall is implemented to use the financial indicator for each company with the longest time window (five-year, then three-year, then one-year window) to calculate the expected compensation based on performance and the regressions.

 

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The information provided in this report is provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind. As You Sow makes no representations and provides no warranties regarding any information or opinions provided herein, including, but not limited to, the advisability of investing in any particular company or investment fund or other vehicle. While we have obtained information believed to be objectively reliable, neither As You Sow nor any of its employees, officers, directors, trustees, or agents, shall be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any information contained herein, including, but not limited to, lost profits or punitive or consequential damages. Past performance is not indicative of future returns.

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Acknowledgements

This report was made possible by the support of the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Argosy Foundation, Arntz Family Foundation, Firedoll Foundation, Fred Gellert Family Foundation, Hanley Foundation, Laird Norton Family Foundation, Manaaki Foundation, Roddenberry Family Foundation, and Singing Field Foundation.

 

Special thanks to: data mining and analytics firm ESGAUGE, the database of Insightia, a Diligent Brand, and The Human Impact + Profit (HIP) Investor team.